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Designer Spotlight: Alessandra Facchinetti

The idea for this post originated in an interview with Alessandra Facchinetti I saw yesterday. She was talking about what inspired her designs for Moncler. Remember last month I wrote about Moncler Gamme Rouge? She makes an interesting point commenting on this sportswear label.

So, I made some investigation work, and here's what I found out. Alessandra Facchinetti is succeeding Valentino, as the master retired in January 2008. The first line under her direction came out in February. She was at first part of the Gucci team, then went on as Tom Ford's successor. But her career really took off at Moncler. Moncler is an Italian company which focused on raising their profile as a haute-couture brand in addition to their already built pret-a-porter name. Alessandra created as much as four collections for Moncler, giving herself and the outerwear label a high-end fashion reputation. Giambattista Valli took over from Alessandra and launched a collection for Moncler.

And this just in! Thom Browne will design for Moncler a new men’s collection called Gamme Bleu (French for “blue range”). Gamme Bleu will not be co-branded with his name, unlike the Junya Watanabe collaboration with Moncler. This collection will be the male counterpart to Gamme Rouge.

Enough about Moncler now, let's focus a bit more on Alessandra's career. She first joined Prada as an assistant in 1995. Then went on being fashion coordinator for women and men at Miu Miu. Moved to Gucci as a design director under Tom Ford for four years. After his departure in 2004, she was hired by Gucci Group as head of women's design. Left in 2005, after two collections. In 2006 worked at Moncler, for which she designed four collections. In 2007 she was named creative director for womenswear at Valentino Fashion Group.

Now, I wonder what the Valentino collection for SS 09 will look like. Oh, but we'll have to wait until the 3rd of October for that...